His Noodly Materials
“Children of a Lesser Dragon God Whelp Boy Thingy Guy”
Written by The Descendant
Cover art provided by UltimateUltimate/ZantyARZ.
Edited by Future.
Dedicated to GiantMako, in the hope that it cheers him up a bit.
O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Idylls of the King”
Chapter 1: “His Noodly Materials”
Generally, when ponies begin running around in circles and screaming, it is because of something rather upsetting. When their forelegs flail through the air, and their eyes go wide with unrestrained terror, it is generally assumed that they are upset about something.
Upsetting, though, is a relative term.
For Celestia, who had seen pretty much all the screaming and flailing there was to see at least three times over, “upset” took place on different levels than most ponies. To her, it generally meant hiding a withdrawn sigh, letting serenity settle back upon her features, and asking her little ponies whatever could be so wrong.
Her general response to most crises were as follows:
First, affect a motherly gaze, and encourage one of her loyal students to handle it, as doing so would help that pony build character/reveal any underlying mental instability.
Second, offer kind advice. This was a solution that, considering her millennia of knowledge, was akin to destroying an attacking army by crushing it under the weight of professional journals, textbooks, and crib notes.
Third and finally, waft the unending power of the sun across her foes, bleaching the landscape to glass as their ashes began to drift on the solar winds that cascaded around her imposing countenance.
The last option was generally more effective against monsters, armies, and witches than it was, for example, in selecting a new prime minister, deciding what to have for breakfast, or helping a foal get her kitty out of a tree.
Live and learn.
There were, in fact, three distinct answers that her ponies could scream that would make her do more than the above.
They were, in declining order of severity, as follows:
“The Heart of the Mountain has been breached!”
“A dragon!”
… and…
“The plumbing’s backed up again!”
Oddly enough, the most practical answer to two of those nightmare scenarios involved a toilet plunger.
The Daybringer walked through the archive, receiving nervous stares from the staff as her plunger hovered in her magic. Making her way across the ancient library, Celestia hid a withdrawn sigh, let her abundant serenity fall across her, affected a motherly gaze, and then looked to the staff as they huddled in the corner behind the circulation desk.
“Do not fear, children,” she said, letting her smile drape over them. “All will be well. I have a toilet plunger.”
Celestia held it up in her magic, letting them see the implement in its rubbery majesty. She moved towards the most ancient part of the archives, guardsponies falling in beside her as she went.
“Yay?” replied one of the librarians, voicing the confusion of those who crowded beneath the back issues of mixed periodicals. The context of the dilemma was completely lost on everypony in the room who was less than, say, one thousand years old.
Since there was only one in the room who could make such a claim, bewilderment held immutable dominion over all.
“Majesty?” asked one of the guards, the Officer of the Watch. The pony had suddenly found his morning slightly more exciting than he had anticipated, and his mind raced to deal with the unfolding situation. He could not quite decide which should garner more of his attention: the foe in the catacombs below, or his princess and her plumbing tool.
“I do not mean to sound… dubious,” he continued, “but do you not require more assistance?”
“No, thank you,” she replied, her eyes set on the stairwell beyond. “Please do keep my little ponies calm, though. Alert General Gambit, and have the pegasi regiment set up a cordon around the city, just in case our guest is joined by others.”
“Very well, Your Highness,” the guardspony replied, nodding to his own officers, sending his pickets and messengers off to execute her orders. He cleared his throat, and then spoke to his sovereign once more. “My Princess, are you sure that you wish to go on by yourself? I mean, it is a dragon, after all.”
“No, dear, thank you,” she repeated. “I do have a toilet plunger. Had I forgotten to mention it?”
She held it up to him in her magic, revealing that one of the few things that could make a guardspony reel away and squeal like a filly was the thought of coming into contact with icky-sticky toilet plumbing thingies of maximum grossness.
Or, at least this one did. The snickers of an entire company of guards sounded out around the library as they looked upon the officer, his blush growing redder and redder as his sovereign stared over him with her familiar smile.
“Uh hum, well, Majesty,” he continued, shooting daggers at his subordinates with his glare, “all I mean by that is… well, it is a dragon, and that is a toilet plunger.”
“Oh, yes, I am quite aware of that,” she said as she slowly turned away. “I promise you, I shall try my best to be merciful with it, though I can not be held responsible if the plunger itself decides otherwise…”
She raised the toilet plunger over her head, letting it come alive in a spectacle of golden illumination. The entire assembly of the room was bathed in awe as light cascaded off of it, and as their princess departed the main hall of the archives they all squinted, trying to behold the plunger in its rubbery awesomeness.
Having turned the first corner out of their view, Celestia let her light fall out of the plumbing implement, and at once it returned to being a simple device of rubber and wood… a perfectly standard toilet plunger by any stretch of the imagination.
Excepting, of course, that this toilet plunger had been designated as the one she used to fight dragons… something that may or may not have been in keeping with the manufacturer’s recommended uses.
Celestia turned to a circular stairwell, one hewn of fine marble. Though she continued to wear her typical smile, the marble blocks may have noticed how she took a deep breath, and then seemed to sigh inwardly as she made her way down the stairwell.
What was more startling to her little ponies was that the princess seemed intent on battling a full-grown dragon with a toilet plunger, a fact that was at once disconcerting and awesome. What they could not know, and what had made Celestia draw her inward sigh, was that she’d spent centuries training the dragons to fear her plunger.
Once upon a time, Procer Celestia Invictus had made a point of engaging in single combat with the ancient dragon lords, demonstrating her power. Lost to history were the tales of the sisters, and later Celestia alone, defeating dragons that wished to threaten her children. Many of those stories had passed into legend, or were remembered only by the rocks that she’d blasted to bits with her sun while charring the dragons to ash.
It had not been a happy end for those draconic peoples who had challenged her, and the rocks most likely hadn’t been too keen on it either.
Contrary to her intent, it only seemed to make more dragons rise to challenge her. Like massive, scaly moths the dragons had come to her consuming flames, each one believing that they could be the one to destroy her, to win fame and honor forever.
So, one fine day, she did highly inappropriate things to an unfortunate dragon with the toilet plunger.
Or, at least, that was the rumor she had spread.
The story had been simple. She had just decided, after defeating one of the last dragons to cross the mountains, to tell the next one to appear that she had done something unspeakable, unmentionable, and unethical to that last dragon with the plunger.
She had then held it up, watched the dragon’s eyes go wide, and then looked on with satisfaction as he had gone scampering back across the mountains with his tail, quite literally, between his legs.
The effect had been immediate.
Defeating a massively powerful, supposedly divine, and apparently immortal alicorn goddess in a titanic battle to the death? The rewards for that were immense. Those few who had survived their encounter with The Sun and escaped to lift their charred, broken bodies back over the mountains had become heroes on that fact alone. Those who had died were worshipped in songs. There was too much honor in it, and it drew them to her flame.
The plunger had changed that.
For a dragon, facing a giggling, sparkly-maned princess and an uncomfortable encounter with a toilet plunger didn’t quite have the same panache. All that awaited any dragon that dared come into Equestria unbidden now, so the rumors said, was a long recovery period and endless jokes told about them for the remainder of their days.
The number of dragons coming over the mountains had dropped precipitately. Now it was only risked by the sick that could not traverse any other course across the continents, those allowed to do so during their migrations, and the deranged that were into that kind of thing.
Now, as Celestia descended the stairs, she ventured a guess as to what kind of dragon had come to Canterlot. The dragon had come not to challenge her personally, or to threaten her children. No, it had other purposes. It had reasons to come here, to the archive.
It must be an older dragon, perhaps as old as herself.
Something in her moved at the thought. Something inside The Daybringer remembered the dragons of old. She remembered the majestic, ancient races of dragons that had once come and gone across the lands she protected. She remembered them, and how they had lived before the calamities that had reduced their aeries and had driven them from their lands.
Once upon a time, the dragons had been an articulate race, governed by their own traditions and their own lords. Once upon a distant and forgotten time, they had sung their own songs. They had spoken their own myths, and had written their own histories.
Now, they were little better than animals. Now they lived baser, more feral lives, and the survivors of the cataclysms that had devastated their kind lived in solitude, hoarding to answer an instinctual drive, rather than add to the culture and greatness of their kind.
Now, the only dragon Celestia knew who lived a life that was even close to what his race had once enjoyed slept in a basket that lay close to the bed of the alicorn’s dearest apprentice. That dragon sent Celestia happy messages in his schoolboy handwriting, had adventures, made friends, ate ice cream, and kept her faithful student from devolving into fits of adorable insanity.
But, there were still memories of that older time, and as a dragon’s warmth met her, Celestia heard one of those echoes clattering around her.
She sighed inwardly again, the marble blocks which lined the stairwell sympathizing with her in exactly the way they aren’t capable of doing, and pulled her plunger closer to herself. She lifted her proud hooves, and went silently down the stairs.
The red light of her dawn rose from one room at the far end of this most ancient stretches of hallways. She soon realized what section it was lifting from, and her hope of finding any sort of intelligence hovering around the dragon dimmed.
The Royal Canterlot Archive & Bingo Parlor prided itself on being the single greatest repository of knowledge in Equestria. In fact, it had dedicated itself to knowledge so thoroughly that it had entirely dropped Bingo from its name and function several centuries ago. She alone was probably the only one who recalled the vast games that had been played in these halls.
Luna had never come with her, as her younger sister had preferred keno.
Still, Celestia pondered, it was probably for the best that books and scrolls had become the primary focus, as the knowledge gathered here had saved her domain many times over.
But, as she approached the section from which the light spread, she could only think that “knowledge” was a relative term.
The archivists had always played fast and loose with what qualified as worthy literature. It seemed that one of them had heard of some city now lost to time and myth where the only requirement for entry was that the traveler submit copies of all the written works in their possession.
The end result was a local library system that had copies of everything from the greatest stories ever written, a complete understanding of all the sciences ever put to text, musical scores from across the globe, the most complete biographies ever recorded… and a whole bunch of break-up letters, shopping lists, and grammatically deficient erotica.
Just how much knowledge that civilization had recorded was never fully known, as it seemed that it had collapsed upon itself under the weight of the paper and parchment. So great was the weight of those words that it created a singularity in the historical fiction section of its largest library, sucking the entire civilization into an alternate dimension… one where she could only hope that the erotica had been spell-checked.
The Equestrian archivists who set up the current system believed in the value of the written word, and as such they too had taken to accepting any submissions that even whiffed of “knowledge”. As she approached that section, her mind went over how shockingly low that bar had been set.
In a section marked “Flotsam, Jetsam, and Detritus” lay all sorts of horrible misuses of literature. Here lay the autobiographies of ponies that had done shockingly little with their lives, joke books written by third graders, and political tracts written by those afflicted with unfathomable amounts of unwarranted self-importance.
Here could be found cookbooks composed by minor celebrities, fiction stories written by left-leaning politicians that ended with right-leaning politicians stealing all of Equestria’s civil rights, and fiction stories written by right-leaning politicians that ended with left-leaning politicians stealing all of Equestria’s civil rights. Here were the ramblings of the insane, the ponderings of the degenerate, and fan fiction… all of the very worst dregs of the literary world.
She sighed, turned the corner, and there before a great vast hole in the wall sat the intruder.
“Bingo,” she said as she leveled her eyes, and her plunger, upon the interloper.
“Are they having a game right now?” answered the dragon. “I don’t believe I saw any tables set up.”
A small mountain of scales moved glacially, slowly turning to face her as a great, vast sweep of wings rose above the dragon. The wind of even these gentle motions knocked more “literature” off the shelves, sending one fan work entitled Daring-Do Verbs a Noun fluttering past her hooves. She rolled her eyes as it passed, and then settled them back on the spectacle that sat before her.
The dragon’s tail whipped around, the shimmer of it catching in the morning light. Morning light that probably should not be there, she noted, seeing that it fell from the gaping hole that had been excavated from the side of the archive by the dragon’s fierce claws, each one as tall as she was.
The dragon’s eyes finally came around, piercing orbs of luminosity cast in green, matching the frills that stood fiercely upon its head and back. There was a low rumble, one that seemed an earthquake inside the enclosed space.
Yes, most impressive. It was most impressive. She’d probably have been terrified out of her mind if this were not, say, the seven hundred and ninety eighth time she’d seen a display very much like it.
“My, my,” came a vast, rumbling voice. “I must say the librarians are quite fetching.”
She blushed slightly, but it ended as the dragon’s mouth came open, revealing teeth both tall and white, and which moved towards her perceptibly.
The plunger came alight in her magic, and in no uncertain terms the act announced her will. “Flattery will get you introduced to a plumbing implement,” it said. The sudden flash of insight, and restrained fear, that went across the dragon’s face told her that the rumors were still as potent as ever.
“Withhold your judgment, Invictus,” the dragon said, the light dropping out of his eyes. A softer expression glided across his face as he retreated a few colossal steps from the alicorn. “I am known to you. In fact, I’m quite saddened that you didn’t recognize me at once.”
Celestia could count on one hand all of the dragons that she had known well enough that they could dare presume speak to her in such familiar terms… even though that would be difficult, as she didn’t have hands.
The hands in question would be those of a dragon, which was convenient as they were the topic at hand… of the hand, as it were. That further limited the number of dragons Celestia knew that well to four, the number of claws that they had on each hand. That was also convenient, as that is the number that she had ever known that well, so it all worked out well enough in the end.
Two were separated from her, seemingly forever. They had been put beyond her sight by the veils of life and death, magic and myth, paternity lawsuits and income tax misunderstandings.
One was still asleep in his basket in Ponyville.
Which meant that this one was…
“Kenbroath,” she whispered.
“My Lady,” he said, bowing low. Even as he did, his wings brushed more imponderable bits of literature to the floor. The dragon’s eyes met hers, and he smiled softly. Now, without his fierce visage, she understood what he had meant to do. Celestia lifted her head to meet his.
With that, Kenbroath kissed her cheek gently, which was akin to saying that a house had been tastefully remodeled by shoving it off a cliff.
Celestia regained her footing and readjusted her tiara. The princess then raised her muzzle up to his cheek and returned the kiss. The small act of affection sent summer sunlight racing through Kenbroath’s perceptions in a way that stubbornly defied being made into a metaphor.
“And what is it that brings you back to Canterlot, or Canter House as you may recall it, Kenbroath?”
“Apart from your beauty, Celestia, I come in search of learning, and in search of larger truths,” said the dragon. His head went up, and his massive claws went back to the shelves.
“I see,” she said, watching him gingerly lift something from deep within the stacks. “And that was worth destroying the ancient walls of my archive, was it?”
She cast her eyes beyond the dragon, which was not easy, considering his size, toward where the stones that had once made up the wall had been cast asunder. The light of her dawning day came cascading across the mountain of displaced blocks.
One would suspect that the stones were not too happy about that, but suggesting such would make one guilty of taxing a joke beyond its ability to amuse.
“I assure you that I can pay for any amount of damage that I’ve done,” he said, gently lifting something from the shelf. “And, speaking of payment, what would it take to get a copy of this work?”
His massive claws made tiny movements, plucking something from the shelf and laying it gently upon the floor before her. He let his selection sit there as he folded his arms and legs beneath himself, looking quite like a contemplative cat.
Celestia’s eyed his choice. To her surprise, it wasn’t a book at all, or even a pamphlet or scroll. It was simply a stack of index cards, held together with a rather forlorn looking rubber band.
On the top card, a vaguely familiar face smiled back at her, drawn in purple and green with a child’s power of illustration.
“Two bits, forty-seven cents,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him. “I shall have the librarians wave the processing fee, if you can agree to depart Canterlot without demolishing any more structures.”
“Agreed,” answered the dragon.
The stones rejoiced.
There were noodles everywhere.
There were noodles on the shelves, noodles across her equipment, and clinging to her coat.
There were noodles swamping her notebooks, sticking to the tree roots, catching in her tail.
Twilight Sparkle was awash in noodles. Rotini, spaghetti, rigatoni, they heaved back and forth across the basement floor in great waves, gently lifting her and lowering her on a tide of wheat-based humiliation. Twilight bobbled across these waves, floating around the basement of the library in nonplussed wonder.
Vermicelli, egg noodles, and ramen. Noodles of such amazing sizes, shapes, and varieties as she’d never seen before… all leaving wet stains across her basement, across her research, and sticking in her mane.
“Okay,” she said, eyeing a large lasagna noodle suspiciously, “that wasn’t right.”
There was movement nearby, and Twilight shifted her attention to a fin that appeared amid the waves. Her eyebrow arched as it came closer, looking very much like a shark amid the waves of noodles, like a semolina-based aquatic predator.
At once it was upon her, leaping up from the ziti… and touching its nose to hers.
“Yup,” Spike said as he emerged. “You were right, Twi, they were chicken feathers, not duck!”
Twilight moaned and put her head in her hoof and moaned in dejection. “Ugghhh!” she said, wiping more noodles from her mane. “I don’t get it! I was wearing a raincoat! There shouldn’t have been any mustard in the pencil sharpener at all, especially after we danced the Happy Squirrel Dance!”
Spike shrugged his shoulders, sending some rotini dropping off his frills.
“Look,” Twilight sighed, “I just want to forget that this whole… well, noodle incident ever happened. Let’s just get this all cleaned up, and I’ll figure out what happened to the spell later.”
“Oh, okay, Twi,” he said, placing his hand on her foreleg. “It’s okay, you’ll figure it out. I know ya will.”
She smiled a weak smile, and he replied with one of his own.
“So, ummm, how are we going to clean this all up?” he asked, swimming a bit to keep from being swept beneath the waves of spaghetti.
Twilight grinned devilishly.
“Dinner time, Spike!” she said, motioning to the vast sea of noodles around them. Spike’s hands instantly went over his mouth, and the dragon appeared to turn a little green.
Twilight laughed a little at her own joke, and was about to assure him that they wouldn’t have to eat their way out of the basement, when Spike sent a cascade of green flame cascading over the noodly waves.
There was a single glub, and Twilight frowned slightly as she fished through the waves with her magic, searching for her little dragon and simultaneously grabbing the letter out of the air.
“Spike!” she said, reading the words that lay on the scroll, reeling him in as he struggled against her magic like a marlin on a fishing line. “Spike!” she repeated, landing her prize in her open forelegs. “It’s for you!”
“What? Really, Twi?” the dragon said as he looked up into her eyes, settling back into her open forelegs to keep from sinking into the unfathomable depths of pasta below. “What… what does it say?”
The little dragon grasped at the letter, reading the words as Twilight held him close:
Dearest Spike,
A copy of your work from the “Theology: Other” shelf of the “Flotsam, Jetsam, and Detritus” section of the Royal Canterlot Archive & Bingo Parlor has been purchased. As such, royalties of three cents have been placed in an account on your behalf.
Congratulations on selling a copy of “The Noble Dragon Code”. You are now a published author. May whatever Providence you see fit to believe in have mercy on your soul.
Love,
Princess Celestia
“We did it, Twi!” Spike cried, spinning around and grasping the unicorn in a great, vast hug. “Somepony purchased a copy of the code!”
“Congratulations, Spike!” she said, returning his embrace.
“Awwww, I couldn’t have done it without ya, Twi,” he said as he nuzzled to her chest, dislodging some fettuccini as he did.
After a good long nuzzle, their eyes went wide, and they were momentarily sucked beneath the waves of rolling noodles. As they bobbed back to the surface, Spike grabbed at the letter, and once more leaned into the offered forelegs of his best friend for the comfort, joy, and buoyancy they offered.
The dragon re-read the letter, and then re-read it again. Twilight looked down to him as they bobbled along in silence, wondering what he was thinking.
“Hey, Twi?” he finally asked. “What does this word mean? And… and Twi, what do ya think the princess meant by that last line?”
Twilight looked at the word. “Theology” it read. Twilight’s eyes then fell across the last line of the letter, contemplating its meaning.
That was when the linguini attacked.
Two days later, the scents of starch, semolina, and shame still lingered around the library.
While the noodles themselves had long since disappeared, Twilight’s failure to command her spell had left them firmly lodged in her perceptions. When she thought about the incident, it brought many unhappy thoughts to her mind, the bitter taste of defeat to her lips, and a peculiar sensation of stickiness to her mane.
Twilight rolled out of bed, listening to Spike’s little snores as she made her way to the bathroom.
She blinked as she stared into the mirror, and then lifted the hairbrush in a waft of her magic.
Her eyes were distant, and her mind raced with a few thousand thoughts. She opened her medicine cabinet and rummaged through the bottles, searching through them with growing sounds of disappointment.
“Here’s your mouthwash,” said a dragon, poking his claw in through the window.
“Thank you,” she mouthed blearily, taking it from the tip.
“You’re getting’ pretty low on stool softener, too,” he added.
“Right,” she said, adding it to the mental list of things she needed to have Spike add to the very real list of things she needed him to buy.
She flossed, brushed her teeth, and then drew her hairbrush through her mane. In her mind, she still felt some of the stickiness from the pasta clinging to her hair, and she groaned at the thought of it.
She made her way past the bedroom. Spike was now awake. The groggy little dragon yawned and then joined her as they went down the stairs.
Twilight couldn’t help but feel that she’d forgotten something of importance, that there was some fact screaming for recognition in her mind. They settled down for breakfast, the unicorn and dragon whelp making their usual small talk as the grill sizzled, the milk poured, and great vast eyes peered in at them through the windows.
Wait, the two thought at once, arching their eyebrows at one another.
Spike and Twilight slowly turned their heads, and the windows all blinked in unison.
“Twwwwwiiiiiiiiii,” said Spike as he raced for her side, dropping an otherwise serviceable omelet on the kitchen floor.
At once, a massive tongue snaked its way in through the stove, bending the chimney at odd angles as it did. The tongue felt around for a moment, bouncing awkwardly off of tables, chairs, and a suspiciously empty spaghetti jar. After a moment it scooped up the omelet and disappeared through the ravished chimney.
“Twwwwwiiiiiii!” Spike cried once again, wrapping himself tighter to her leg.
“All hail the cooking skills of The Lawgiver!” came an echoing cry, one that buffeted the library. “Blessed are his utensils! Blessed are his spices! Blessed is his poofy chef’s hat!”
“Blessed is the omelet he prepared!” came one voice, reaching them with a contented purr. “It could have used just a pinch of pepper, but it was surely blessed!”
“Blessed are the slightly under-garnished omelets of The Lawgiver!” echoed many thunderous voices.
“Twwwwwwwiiiiiiii!!!” Spike called, hiding beneath her tail, peeking out from beneath it as the many eyes continued to peer at them. “What’s going on?!”
Twilight looked around at the windows, and in her mind she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.
It proved remarkably difficult. She hadn’t had breakfast, after all.
Just as her mind had begun to stop running around in horror, shock, and disappointment over the loss of a perfectly good breakfast (even if it did lack pepper) there was a knock on the door.
It was followed by another knock, and then a rapid series of knocks.
Twilight hobbled to the door as best she could. Massive eyes peered at her through each window, and a baby dragon whelp pulled her tail down over his head and clung to her back leg.
Rarity had always been a rather perfect white, but the unicorn that stood there at the door, still slowly waving her hoof through the air as though she were still knocking, was so pale that she seemed only a few shades away from going starkly transparent.
“Twilight, darling, good morning,” mouthed Rarity, seeming so withdrawn that she did not so much meet Twilight’s eyes but instead had them sent by second day air delivery. “Did you happen to count the number of dragons in Ponyville today by any chance?”
Twilight blinked. “Uh, one?” she said, motioning down between her legs.
Spike looked up, saw the familiar outline of his ladylove, and sprung from the shelter of Twilight’s tail to great the graceful unicorn.
Upon getting a better look at Rarity, her eyes distant, her complexion faded, Spike slid slowly back beneath.
“Yes, well,” Rarity whispered, “I do believe that we have a slight increase in the population to report.”
Twilight stepped forward, Spike hanging from her leg once more, making her step awkwardly, like a cat would if it had a baby dragon hanging from its leg. Or a like a goat would, or a gazelle… any higher mammal, actually.
The point was, as Twilight stepped out the door she did so with the grace of a clinically depressed walrus, which typically do not have legs, but which make for extremely effective metaphors.
She looked up into the rays of the morning sun, her eyes fluttering as they adjusted to the light.
When they finally did, she lifted her hind leg, shook it, and let Spike fall to the ground. The dragon stood, wobbled about, gazed out into the streets of Ponyville… and then firmly grasped her front leg instead.
Dragons. There were dragons everywhere.
Dragons sat wrapped around houses. Dragons crowded the streets, they draped themselves across the nearby fields, and they sat lapping water out of the fountains.
There were enormous dragons, monstrous dragons, and pretty big dragons that would assure you that it’s not about size but quality. There were ancient dragons that sat quietly reflecting, adult dragons that looked about inquisitively, and juvenile dragons that seemed intent on lighting their farts on fire.
All of these dragons, from the massive to the large, from the ancient to the not quite so ancient, all turned their heads to face Twilight, Rarity, and (after another firm shake) Spike.
The little dragon peered up to his peers, only to go back diving under Twilight as a chorus of voices lifted around them.
“All hail The Lawgiver!” the dragons shouted in unison. “May his scales never fade! May his frills always stay sharp! May he always stay adorable as he snores in his wittle-bitty basket!”
“They were watching me sleep, Twi,” Spike said, his voice a little whine. “Why were they watching me sleep?”
“I… I don’t know!” she replied, leaning close to him and gulping. An embarrassed blush went across her face as she pondered what they might have seen when they peered through their bedroom window. “Spike,” she said. “Why don’t you try… well, anything? Try talking to them.”
Spike looked up to her in a sort of restrained panic, and then took a step forward.
“Ummm, hi,” he said, raising his hand to begin waving at the crowd of dragons. Heads appeared above nearby houses, and to his surprise they peered back at him in excitement. He gave Twilight a nudge, and she too began to wave, only drawing more excitement from the assembly.
The dragons stared at the pony and whelp as they waved, and then stared at their own clawed hands as though they’d never seen the gesture before. Twilight nudged Rarity, and soon the graceful unicorn had joined them in waving to the draconic masses.
Soon, the dragons began to wave back, timidly at first, but soon with massive enthusiasm. Soon the ponies, the little drake, and the throng of dragons simply stood there in front of the library, waving at one another with big false smiles like morons.
“Ummm,” said Spike after a long moment, raising his other hand to support his tiring arm.
“It’s a blessing! The motion is a blessing from The Lawgiver!” cried a large dragon.
“We are blessed!” called the dragons through the clenched teeth of their painted smiles.
“I’ve never been so happy,” one called through gritted teeth, tears streaming down his gargantuan face, “but my arm sure is getting friggin’ tired!”
“Twi, what in the Well is going on?” Spike said, not daring to drop his wave or smile, only his eyes showing the panic that was now going through him.
“I have no idea,” Twilight added as she continued to wave. Her eyes swept to Rarity. “Rarity?” Twilight said, some small panic showing in her eyes. “What in the Well is going on?”
“I’m quite sure that I have no idea what in the Well is happening,” Rarity said, an unladylike glow arising from her as she struggled to wave and smile. “All that I know is that I tried to take Opal to Fluttershy’s this morning. Suddenly, there were dragons everywhere.”
The three waved some more, sweat pouring from them. The dragons waved back, though they weren’t entirely sure why.
“Poor Opal lodged herself under Fluttershy’s bed,” Rarity continued. “And poor, poor Fluttershy had nowhere to escape to. You know how she is with grown dragons. So, well, she wedged herself under the abutment of the Mill Creek Bridge. Last time I saw her she was trembling so hard that the whole structure seemed to suffering from a fit of apoplexy.”
Twilight moaned.
“I do believe that I can answer your question, my dearest student,” came a familiar voice.
The dragons and ponies slowed their arms, sighing in relief when they were able to drop their smiles. Their eyes slowly moved towards where Princess Celestia stood, a strikingly handsome dragon very close to her.
Celestia walked forward, the dragon following behind. The dragons bowed to both, and after a moment the princess spoke. “You see, Twilight, these dragons seem to have the impression that Spike is a god.”
“Ohhhhhh,” Twilight said with a giggle. “That makes sense!”
There was a pause of a moment, as though several synapses in her beautiful mind had missed their cue to fire due to being denied the energy that would have been provided by, say, an omelet.
“No, wait, what?!” Twilight finally cried, her hair frazzling.
“What?!” exclaimed Rarity, jumping in place.
“Thud” went Spike as his eyes rolled back and he collapsed to the street.
“Eep!” said the Mill Creek Bridge.
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Rumors have it that the librarian in that lost library now eats a lot more bananas and can even catch books with his feet.
But that's just hearsay.
LOL!!
Dude, you've done it again! Continuing on to next chapter, but this is as hilarious as you're usual comedies are. I think you may have over used the meta jokes about metaphors in this one alone, but it was still great.
Meta about metaphors. Hur....
ALL HAIL THE STORYTELLER! MAY HIS QUILL NEVER RUN OUT OF INK! LET THE MIGHTIEST REDWOODS BE FELLED TO RECORD HIS MASTERY! MAY HIS FICTITIOUS ACCOUNTS OF PASTEL-COLORED TALKING PONIES FLOW LIKE THE WATERS OF THE NILE! LIKE THE SNOW OF A MIGHTY AVALANCHE! LIKE THE SPICE IN AN EXTREMELY OVER-RATED SCI-FI MOVIE!
2590883
And whatever you do, don't call him an monkey
You presented a noodle incident.
You explicitly presented a noodle incident.
You, via explanation in the actual story, explicitly presented a noodle incident.
By their very nature, noodle incidents are undefined and never presented! Sweet merciful Heaven, Descendant, you've doomed us all!
It says quite a lot about Celestia's early years that she had to determine that those are inappropriate times to unleash the unbridled fury of the sun through experience.
Spike is Akatosh.
Thought process upon looking on FimFic front page:
"Feature box titles, then: meh, looks dull *click*, looks dull *click*, oh, long title that is either intentionally humorous or unintentional and sign of a disasterously bad author, most likely former, given feature box (but with quality of some fiction these days); check summary, then, *click* Spike fic as expected, promising summary (definately former case) and DECENDANT SPIKE FIC! DECENDANT SPIKE FIC! CANNOT HIT BUTTON TO READ FAST ENOUGH!"
Measured and carefully considered feedback from reading first chapter:
Bwahahahahahahaha!
AAAAAh-hahahahahahaha!
BWAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Will now continue to read next chapter.
I like funny.
TO THE NEXT CHAPTER!
TEH FUNY!
noodle incident... did someone read Calvin and Hobbes?
2591146 The great and powerful Descendant of Keh'An forces the noodles to bow to him! Also, he shall not be held responsible for noodle induced mass panic amongst his minions.
2592313 All we need now is the cardboard constructed dimension dislocatatron for proof... Too bad Smarty Pants hid that in conjunction with a certain stuffed tiger...
1.3*10^33? Challenge accepted!
Boy was her face red after that incident.
I'm guessing that the two scenarios were the dragon and the Heart of the Mountain being breached. The plumbing being backed up must be Luna's job to fix now that Cadence is in the Crystal Empire.
But her fits of adorable insanity are extremely adorable! Spike needs to let her go into insanity mode more often in my opinion.
I could be mistaken but I believe that you forgot a comma: "warmth met her[comma] Celestia heard".
So THAT is how the Library of Alexandria was created. It makes so much sense now.
HA!
You know, a thought occurred to me towards the end of this chapter... It must have taken a lot of coordination on the dragons part to shout everything they said in unison.
Let the adorableness commence!!
Great story so far TD! I highly enjoyed this (even if it did take hours for me to read through it... stupid guests wanting to visit their friends). Can't wait to read the other chapters once I get home and (hopefully) free from distractions... though my dog and fire department might have a say in that.
Giant Mako is the boss, also this story is really good so far, will finish it later :p
When you laugh so hard you start crying
Yes, this had me dying, awww I love poor Fluttershy but this was funny as shit, I....
This was pure gold, I have to read more, I really want to see a pic of Celestia with a toilet plunger now
Gods, this was amazing, now it could very well just be me but I'm seeing a bit of Spilight, once again it could just be me as a very big fan of that pairing
You. Yes, you. You are a comedy genius.
And then Vogons arrived to demolish the planet
(sorry, but given how much this story resembles The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I couldn't resist
)
The writing is amazing. The metaphors are so skillfully written that they might've been cooked out of a skillet (ha ha). This is a good piece of work and you should fee good.
I'm enjoying this story far more than I should.
As patently ludicrous as it is, there's an oddly well organized rhyme to it. Point in case:
“Bingo,” she said as she leveled her eyes, and her plunger, upon the interloper.
Absolutely. Flawless. Setup. This would have caused me to snort liquid out my nose, had I been consuming a beverage. But even beyond the humor, the quality of the writing just slid along. It was smooth and effortless to read, and did nothing to distract from the story. Basically, it wasn't total garbage, and this is a rare thing.
This will not do. You need to start writing bad stories so narrow-minded critics can more easily lambaste you. Think of the critics! Won't somebody please think of the critics?
That is so many types of creepy, however, how did no one notice creatures the size of mountains hanging about in Spike (and Twilights) bedroom.
I get a feeling there might be some quoting of the Life of Brian coming up.
This... what... I don't even...
This story seems to resemble what would happen if My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic was put through an infinite improbability drive.
I'd like to see the math on the black hole calculation. Black holes do not require mass but density to form. I could turn a napkin into a black hole if I compressed it enough. In the same way your library should be totally fine as long as the density is smaller than c^2/(8/3)Gπr^2
The average density of printing paper according to wikipedia is around 800kg/m^3. Plugging this into the equation I come up with a library radius of 4.48e11 meters before it'll collapse into a black hole. This sphere of paper would weigh 3.03e38 kilograms. A typical sheet of a4 paper weighs 5 grams. So the origami deathstar would contain 6.05e40 sheets of paper. That's 7 orders of magnitude higher than you guys came up with. Did you take into account the collapse into a neutron star halfway through or something?
Any story that has the words "Happy Squirrel Dance" in it deserves a random tag.
That plunger plan is fantastic. Nice idea, Celestia.
Hmn. Makes me wonder if Rarity is just that attractive to dragons, or if there might be special mention of her in Spike's Noble Dragon Code.
I wished I had the option to follow you twice, because it's been so long since I've laughed this much at a piece of pony fanfiction. Then I realized I was, in fact, not actually following you in the first place.
This has been fixed.
How do you do it, TD? How did you get a meta fic onto this website?
............
There are no words... no words to describe this... this... this...
AWESOME WORK OF UNADULTERED AWESOMENESS!
"Twilight stepped out the door she did so with the grace of a clinically depressed walrus..."
...
Okay, seriously, how the frig do you come up with this sort of hilarity?
And then the internet happened.
She rolled her eyes as it passed?
She rolled her eyes at it's passing?
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw112_medium.png
This is going exactly where I hoped it would go
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw1108_32701-artistphysicallypossiblecaptionfluttershyhappyyesh_this_pleases_mehyou_shall_be_spared_.jpg
This story reminds me a bit of the works of Terry Pratchett.
And the winner of this years most awkward transistions goes tooooo...
But seriously the chapter was too funny. I literally had to stop reading once in a while just to inhale some air...
...when did this turn into a fic by Troll?
Well, that was an exercise in bizarre hilarity. On to the next chapter! Where hopefully there will be less attempts to set dragon farts on fire.
The dragons' reactions reminded me of Monty Python and the Life of Brian...
The Noodle Incident. Clearly Calvin and Hobbes. Greatest comic strip ever.
WAT!?
Next on Fox! When Linguini attacks!
GOD THIS IS FUNNY!
So because Spike is one of the few remaining dragon that are still in the pursuit of "knowledge" and wrote his own "Dragon Code", he is seen as a god?
Makes sense to me!
And why do I feel like there is a reference to MIB 2 and How to train your dragon in this?
Let the crazy dragon filled comedy continue!
*reads*
*stares*
....I wish to face you in single combat on the ancient field of battle, devour your heart and steal your magic powers.
I'll have to settle for putting this in the watch box.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as seen through the eyes of Monty Python.
This is really, really, really good, not to mention funny and clever. Please continue channeling Douglas Adams in your writing; the world could really use more Adams.
Also, just a small error I noticed:
Should be "how shockingly truly low", or something along those lines, since the repeated "how" is either gramatically incorrect or extremely awkward phrasing.
woooow :DD nice fic , hahahaha spike a god !!!
very very interesting
Our pasta, who art in a colander, draining be your noodles. Thy noodle come, Thy sauce be yum, on top some grated Parmesan. Give us this day our garlic bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trample on our lawns. And lead us not into vegetarianism, but deliver us some pizza, for thine is the meatball, the onion, and the bay leaves, forever and ever. R'Amen.
ALL HAIL THE FLYING SPAGHETTI MONSTER, THE ONE CAPITALIZED MONSTER. ALL OTHER MONSTERS ARE FALSE MONSTERS UNDESERVING OF CAPITALIZATION.
A nod to your source of inspiration, do I detect?
Was that double usage of "cascade" intentional? Because if it was supposed to be amusing, the effort put into it was probably negative something. The double usage of "peer" later was somewhat more amusing, but I would suggest changing "cascade" to "burst" or somesuch synonym. It's the one joke (unless it's a typo) that just doesn't work, and was almost embarrassing to read in this sea of intelligently-conceived humor.
Marvin the Clinically Depressed Walrus: "I don't know why all these dragons are suddenly gathered around, but I'm probably just going to get them all down... Of course you think Spike is a god. Here I am, prize student of the wielder of the Sun, close friend of many royal figures, Element of Magic, brain the size of a library, and it's my shrimpy little assistant whom you come to worship as a god. Oh, Celestia, I'm so depressed..."
I shall read the rest later.
>>>O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world,
But had not force to shape it as he would.>>>
*chuckles and answers in the sing-song voice of a true troll* I knooooowwwww! But I'm not tellin' ya! You can figure it out once you know who the players are and their motivations.
It's like any riddle, almost ludicrously simple once you see the answer.
>>>“I just want to forget that this whole… well, noodle incident ever happened.>>>
*eyenarrows suspiciously* You know the details of 'The Noodle Incident'...
images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120813011952/candh/images/e/e6/The_Noodle_Incident.png
>>>Here were the ramblings of the insane, the ponderings of the degenerate, and fan fiction… all of the very worst dregs of the literary world.>>>
The only thing absent from the great library was the sole copy of a fictional series called by some 'The Abomination of Desolations', which was relegated to the deepest pits of Tartarus, bound in great chains of adamantium and unobtanium alloy. It's name was lost to time, for the mere mention of it invoked primal sensations of both rage and terror.
All that was known of this most unholy of sagas was that it contained sparkly vampires...
Oh sweet Celestia. I haven't laughed so hard since I read "Certain Advantages"
Ditto on what this guy said. 2590920
I'd better hold off on reading the next chapters, lest I stay awake all night from the laughter.
Earlier on today ((four days ago, by now)) I downloaded the chapters of this story (and others), as I was going to be going somewhere without internet access. You have the distinction of being the first one I'm reading offline.
Even just the beginning, I love it. Celestia's three responses... yep, you're the one who wrote 'Song of Syhlex'.
Which of the other two scenarios involved a plunger? [[Oh, a dragon.]] And what's the Heart of the Mountain? (Somebody really ought to write a guide to things from previous generations that might get referenced in fanfic, like Tirek and witches; it'd be useful to know, but there is NO WAY I'll wade through those earlier things.)
'Celestia' is her name, I'm pretty sure that 'Invictus' means 'invincible' or something like that, but what about 'Procer'?
"Fits of adorable insanity", eheheheh. I suppose Celestia might consider them like that, compared to her years. I also like the idea of the Archive containing all SORTS of random dumb things (properly organized into a separate area, of course).
Ooh, ooh! Is this the Noodle Incident?
What's the Well? Or is that just what you're using instead of 'Tartarus'?
Yes, yes, I can safely say this was worth the wait. You had better finish it.
I won't lie... I thought this was absolutely awful. It's rare that I can't even force myself to finish the first chapter.
Maybe this is my punishment for having an epic birthday cake.